After flipping through the book again, I found my self drawn to chapter 4 - Studying Challenging Topics Together. What I liked so much in this section was the focus on quality questions and responses and The Socratic Method. It seems that each year my fifth graders struggle to have a meaningful, purposeful conversation about topics. Sometimes the answers are incredibly repetitive or simplistic. I'd like to see what the class could do both in a live group conversation and with posting on a topic that was complex and compelling given some instruction on this topic of quality responses.
It seems that teaching the kids the different types of posts, how to respond, and what a quality post looks like would all be important in helping kids learn how to move a conversation forward in a meaningful way. I can think of applications in literature, science, and social studies immediately. I could probably apply it to math too. What if kids, in small groups, could wrestle with essential questions of a unit together in a manner in which all kids, by virtue of design, had to add to the conversation and add to it in a meaningful way? It could be great.
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